I don't recall that offhand, but it wouldn't surprise me. The movie is weird because I kinda think making Willis into Diaboromon's creator as a way to tie stuff together isn't inherently bad. But cutting out huge swathes of Hurricane Touchdown makes it make even LESS sense.
(To me you can get away with panel-as-storyboard if it's like, Spy X Family where you can't super improve on the great expression work or anything Naoki Urasawa does because he's a fucking genius.
I'd say better DIRECTION, maybe. 2003 doesn't quite have as much SAKUGA flexing, but the boarding/lighting/camera placement is impeccable. Brotherhood has a lot more fluidity but relies too much on Arakawa's panel work for storyboarding, which causes some tonal issues.
Personally I think Brotherhood is a fine series, but that Arakawa's manga is the best way that particular story is told. Agree that 2003 is great wholly on its own.
I feel like MLP is a littttleee overstated. Like yes you had the pilot having some fun fucked-up stuff with Tirek, but basically nothing after that in G1 is remotely as hardcore.
The thing with G.I. Joe is that, much like G1 Transformers, they hired vaunted comics weirdos like Steve Gerber to write episodes, and this resulted in some truly deranged half hours like "Cobra Commander runs a telethon" and "Shipwreck goes through an even more nightmarish Truman Show scenario".
Honestly I feel like this wouldn't necessarily have been better. On top of everything else, he's become incredibly lazy as an actor despite all the Method touting. I was watching Panic Room from 2002 a bit ago and was astonished at how much he put into the role of a nervous, twitchy criminal.
And like, I agree that we suck in a lot of ways and that we shouldn't use whataboutism to deflect from our own faults. There's things we could learn from each other! But these kinds of things rarely come from actual sincere solidarity and are way more often about cheap online dunks.
Burr is probably the biggest disappointment here, so much for your principles. Wonder how this'll square with Ansari's attempt at a comeback with Good Fortune.
